


Waiting On A Train

by Haywire



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 05:01:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haywire/pseuds/Haywire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Phillipa Cobb was not supposed to work in extraction.</i>
</p>
<p>Years after her father's return to America, a now adult aged Phillipa reflects on how she'd arrived at her current situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting On A Train

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilredridinghood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilredridinghood/gifts).



> Warning relates to a major character death mentioned but not written about in detail, but warning for it just the same.
> 
> Another treat inspired by lilredridinghood 's prompts for the 2013 Rare Women Fanfic Exchange.

Phillipa Cobb was not supposed to work in extraction. Her younger brother, James, had avoided his parent's profession, studying instead to achieve a doctorate in Psychology and becoming a professor, like his grandfather. A nice, safe occupation, and still interesting, which was similar to what Phillipa - and her parents - had originally envisioned for her.

Yet there she was, preparing for a mission, her team surrounding her in the train cabin they shared en route to the job. A quick glance at her watch showed they were about twenty minutes away from their destination. Phillipa took a sip of her complimentary beverage, placing it back on the fold down tray in front of her before turning to look outside the window at the countryside rolling past them.

She had taken steps toward a similar position as her sibling, having studied Physics as an undergraduate for several years. In fact, she had declared a double major in Physics and Mathematics, a fact about which Cobb bragged endlessly to anyone who'd listen, but just north of three years into her degree she had a change of heart.

Art had always been a passion of Phillipa's, especially film, and a special lecture on the physics of several popular science fiction movies rekindled her love of the subject. It started with watching some of the movies from the lecture, studying their effects and their associated application of physics, then gradually branched out into exploring the other work of those directors and actors, moving away from the physics and focusing on the acting, the story, the cinematography, until she found herself bitten by the acting bug once again.

When she was younger, after her mother's death and the return of her father, Phillipa spent a lot of time lavishing in the spotlight of her father's attention. James had commented on it while working on his degree, though she hadn't really paid attention to him at the time. Her natural desire for her father's attention spilled over into a general demand for all eyes to be on her, and lead to enrollment in several extracurricular activities: acting lessons, dancing lessons, and music lessons, among others.

The sun was setting, and now and then the odd copse of trees whose branches stretched far enough into the sky obscured its warm last rays, scattering shadows intermittently throughout the cabin. The flickering was oddly comforting to Phillipa; it reminded her of old 35mm movie reels she'd seen, and of home movies. Her grandfather had an old camera of that type and had shot many hours of footage of her and her brother during their childhood. Cobb had not been as big an enthusiast of the format as his first born - or perhaps the memories had been to painful, she later contemplated - so she hadn't seen the film until she was well into her teens. When she discovered her grandfather's ancient footage, however, she'd constantly beg him to play them for her whenever they visited him.

Welcome memories of her mother came floating to her mind at that thought, for some of her grandfather's footage had featured glimpses of her. Perhaps that was a large part of Phillipa's love for the home movies; she sadly had very few memories of her mother, most of which were brief and infuriatingly fuzzy. So getting to see her, even in grainy, dark 35mm footage, meant the world to her.

She often wondered if Mal would have approved of her change in professions. Changes, to be precise, from her lofty academic pursuits to acting, and then from acting to extraction. From what Cobb and her grandfather had told her, her mother had an extraordinary talent for the latter which she seemed to have inherited, much to her father's dismay.

Ah, her father. His reaction to her switch to extraction was indelibly engraved into her memory, whether she wanted it to be or not. They'd argued, of course, which had hardly been the first time and was to be expected. Comparisons to James were made - "why can't you be more like your brother?" was still odd to hear, given she was the elder of the two - and arguments in the anticipated "you'll just give up on this too" vein were plentiful as well, hand in hand with pleas not to throw away years of studying and tuition after having already switched that once.

The degree to which he'd taken it, fighting her tooth and nail, yelling until he was red in the face, that was not expected. Like her mother, she'd been told - by more than just her father and grandfather; her Uncle Arthur and others had confirmed it - this only made her dig her heels in deeper. Phillipa would not relent, citing his and Mal's background with the same and how it had been good enough for them, was still good enough for her father in fact.

He'd hated that most of all, she thought. Once Cobb had returned to America he'd given up the game, focusing instead on raising his children. As James and Phillipa grew older, however, he'd given more and more thought to getting back into extraction. There was no denying that there was money in it, and with Uncle Arthur and various other people in their lives still working in the field it wasn't too hard to get back into it.

Cobb rarely went into the field, instead focusing on the role of architect, which her Aunt Ariadne also did for a living. Her mother had always been more fond of the hands on portion, he'd told Phillipa, which was the main reason he'd done more of the same once they started dating. It was dangerous work, however, and even though he still had a hand in it he'd always dissuaded her from following in her parents' footsteps. James had listened, always the obedient one, and in time Phillipa learned to master her curiosity and to squirrel it away in secret, but she'd never forgotten how much she'd wanted to try it.

When the opportunity came up, she leapt at it, eager to give it a shot. A close friend of hers had heard rumors of one of her friends carrying out such a task and passed the information along to Phillipa, who then in turn approached the person, expressing her willingness to assist. It was only after the operation was complete - an extremely minor extraction attempt from a fellow student of the friend of a friend, which had been successful - that she told her father about it. That was when Cobb erupted, the epic argument spiraling and rising to a fevered pitch -

The train's whistle blast finally registered with her, and Phillipa wondered for how long it had been blowing. She shook her head in a futile but determined attempt to erase the memory of the argument from her mind, or to at least displace it while she focused on the task at hand. It would do her no good to linger on the past, after all; there was nothing that could change those last words.

Their fight ended with her quipping something about him incepting her to forget the idea, if he really thought it was that bad and he was really that good, which had hurt him, badly. She saw it in his eyes, how wounded her father was at that, and whether it had been the reopening of an old wound or the sting of a fresh one she still couldn't say to that day, but she'd regretted it, instantly and to that day. Cobb had left without a word, heading off for another job, one from which he'd never come home. If only she hadn't angered him, hadn't distracted him -

Phillipa sighed, taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly. She knew such thoughts were counterproductive, especially in light of her current circumstance, so she let them go. She had a job to do, after all, and during her reverie the train had reached a complete stop. A quick glance around the cabin revealed Uncle Arthur and the rest of her father's crew, now her crew, were in various stages of standing and packing their belongings. It was time to go, as soon as she'd completed her ritual.

Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew a small metallic object from within and, with a deft flick of her index finger and thumb, set it spinning on the table in front of her. The tiny top spun and spun, and Phillipa bit her lip as she drank it in, wondering for the millionth time if this would be the time it just kept on spinning.


End file.
